Shower Thoughts

You really don't understand any dog words? They aren't that hard to learn. You may take a few days with a new dog to recognize their voice and place the common vocalizations accurately, but they have vocal patterns.

Every dog has a warning bark, an "attention" bark, and a play bark for sure. I've never met a dog that didn't, though some are way too chill to use their warning bark often.

They've got a lot of other vocalizations that are and aren't barks as well.

When you combine those with their body language, which is also pretty universal with individual variations akin to human vocal tics and gestures, you get a fairly complex body of "words".

It isn't so complex you can't pick up the language in a few weeks of practice, but it is a form of language that all dogs use.

Like, a play bark is almost always accompanied by either a play bow, or a play jump. Sometimes both.

The position of ears and tails modifies vocalizations, or stand as their own expression without vocalizations when the entire body is taken into account. You can tell what a dog is feeling and "thinking" just by watching them for a second or two. That isn't words, per se, but it is language.

The real difficulty comes in discerning the tiny changes that indicate mood that are based on the same action, but different positioning and/or emphasis via body movement. Watching a tail wag can tell you a lot. The position up and down, the direction of the wag, and the vigor of the wag combine to tell you things.

Dogs tend to do them and read them instinctively, which we can't do, so you're still dead on with them being smarter than us lol

Seriously, go watch some dogs in groups. Ignore everything except their barks, and you'll eventually pick up the differences.